


Let's Fade Away Together (One Dream at a Time)

by frnkieroo



Series: Joshler Oneshots [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots, joshler - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, i wrote this at like 1am imsorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frnkieroo/pseuds/frnkieroo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler grew up with vivid, colorful dreams, whereas Josh was only met with darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Fade Away Together (One Dream at a Time)

**Author's Note:**

> Title based off of Fall Out Boy's "Where Did The Party Go". Soulmate drabble-ish thing idk

Tyler loved sleeping. Not that he was lazy (or inactive at all, he was quite energetic on the contrary), or even seriously loved the act of sleeping itself, no. He looked forward to dreaming.

Tyler's dreams were vivid and full of color, and almost always had some sort of beat in the background. Flashes of blue, red, and green swirled around his head, with an occasional glimpse of a towering tree with a dark blue sky. He remembers having them since he was seven, these crazily realistic dreams, and would tell his mother about them every night. His mother simply shook her head and smiled, knowing of it all too well.

When Tyler turned 12, his mother sat him down and explained to him about the dreams, and how she had them too until she met his father. He was still confused as to the concept of 'soulmates', but his mother simply said, "It will click when you meet her, Ty. You'll know."

The thing is, as Tyler grew up, he started to get a better description of this soulmate of his. And it didn't look like there would be any 'her' involved whatsoever. Tyler kept this part to himself, knowing that even though he couldn't help it, ridicule would be inevitable.

Not that Tyler felt guilty at all about the dreams. They were the best way to end almost every night (give or take the few restless or nightmare filled ones), these visions of the colors now taking the form of short, slightly curled hair, warm embraces from built arms, and deep but chiming laughter.

He was just afraid.

-

Josh grew up with only stories that friends told him of about their dreams of their soulmates. He was sixteen now and was met with nothing but a black screen when he shut his eyes. It upset him, to say the least, and every time his friends reminded him that he could be a late bloomer, he shrugged it off with a "yeah, sure" and continued to mentally plan his lonely future with twenty cats. It didn't sound too bad until he faced the whole 'crazy cat man' title.

And Josh didn't want to be a late bloomer anyway. It's been said that the later you receive the dreams, the more intense they are. And Josh was not one for intensity, even with his nose ring and blue hair. He was more on the team of pent up emotions and social barriers, keeping a tranquil aura in front of others, and most importantly keeping the hell to himself.

Josh then realized that this could be the reason as to why he wasn't getting the dreams in the first place.

-

When Tyler got into high school, he decided to flip fate the bird and go for a nice girl. He could change his love life if he wanted to. It was his anyways, right? And it wasn't that he was scared (granted, he fucking was), but he thought maybe girls weren't so bad if you, you know, squint your eyes. Have you ever done that? When your squint your eyes, and y- anyways.

Now, Jenna was the textbook definition of a nice girl. She was all shining smiles, meaningful hugs, and pure positive vibes.

But Tyler didn't love her.

Try as he did, he just couldn't. He liked her, he really really liked her, but the word love never really fit the situation. And in time they both broke down and admitted to each other of their real dreams. Apparently Jenna didn't swing that way, either. With the mutual breakup came an amazing friendship, because it wasn't bullshit when Tyler said he liked her.

-

Josh had given up on love.

It was the evening before his seventeenth birthday, and instead of staying up until 12am as usual for a birthday, he shut out the lights and plopped into bed at 9:06, seeing this as simply the anniversary of his loneliness.

He shut his eyes and was greeted by the same silent black screen.

Josh didn't know how long he had been asleep until it hit him. His brain was met with two brilliant golden-brown eyes, flashing before him before passing and being replaced by arms scattered with black bands, shaking hands, and a quiet and simple strum of a ukulele, it sounded like.

Having had to wait this long, his head decided to kick it up a notch.

Floral print in shades of reds and blues blinked to the ukulele sounds, the tempo rising and the music becoming more erratic. The ukulele halted to a stop and a slow piano sound took it's place. Shaking hands, again. They were practically wringing each other out. A voice appeared, overpowering the small piano sounds.

_"I'm sorry, I'm so-"_

_"I love you, J."_

Josh was the type to hold it in, this he knew. But when he woke up at 11:45 with tears streaming down his face and a tightened throat, he didn't.

-

Tyler had made his grades his sole focus, and when sleep was replaced with studying, the dreams left him. He was upset by this at first, but then filled the hole in his heart with straight A's, and it worked pretty well for him.

That is, until he started to fall asleep in class. Apparently, stress, mixed with a lack of sleep, made the soulmate dreams a whole lot scarier.

Blurs of red and black laced with grey streaks flew across his eyes. There was no beat this time, only a low buzzing sound.

And for the first time, a voice.

 _"Are you okay?"_ The one sentence repeated over and over, echoing and changing in pitch each time it was said.

_"Are you?"_

Tyler shot up in his desk, his hands gripping the edges of his desks as if he were about to fall off. And in this state, he probably could've.

"Tyler?"

He jumped and looked to Jenna, who was looking at him with concern from the desk next to his. He tried to open his mouth to form an explanation, but felt his eyes start to well up. He turned away, shaking his head. This wasn't the right place to discuss this.

The lunch bell rang, and it shook Tyler even thought he was so used to the droning sound. "I've gotta go talk to Debbie, meet me at the tree in fifteen. You're worrying me, Ty," Jenna said, hugging her shaken-up friend and walking out of the classroom.

Tyler headed out to the back of the school to the tree. This had become his and Jenna's designated spot for emergency discussions, as there was usually no one in earshot so they could cry and bitch all they wanted without any judgmental looks sent their way.

He picked up his pace and kept his eyes to the ground to make it clear he was not in the mood to chat with anyone. Not that anyone other than Jenna really talked to him anyway. He didn't care that his hands were twitching like fucking crazy with anxiety, he didn't try to even contain it. All he cared about right now was keeping his breathing under control. In, out, _inoutinout and why was he so damn nervous inoutinoutininoutout-_

He collided into someone, tossing a few of their textbooks to the ground. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Don't be rude. Apologize and get to the tree._

Tyler took a shaky breath in, still not meeting this persons eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm so-" He stopped and stared at this blue haired boy in front of him, now frantically picking up his textbooks and if Tyler wasn't frozen in shock he would've actually helped.

The boy looked up as soon as Tyler spoke. His mouth opened, but was silent for a second. His gaze turned to Tyler's hands, which were still shaking. "Are you okay?" The boy asked.

Tyler's heart nearly stopped to say the least. "You- you're the uh- and me, were-"

Josh cut Tyler's nervous rambling off. "Do you play the ukulele? Or the piano?" He sounded quite nervous himself, but put together enough to spit out full sentences.

Tyler made a confused look. What kind of question was that? "Piano," he answered, clasping his hands together in hopes to stop the shaking but no such luck, because beautiful dream boy was standing before him, if he wasn't mistaken. "Your name, uh, what's- what's your name?" He wanted to punch himself in the fucking face for how unsmooth he was.

Once the boy had all of his textbooks picked up, he looked to Tyler again and smiled. A really nice smile, Tyler took note. "Josh. And you?"

"Tyler." And Tyler smiled back because no matter how nervous he felt, this exchange felt natural somehow.

"Um, so, if you want," Josh started, fumbling around in his backpack now. He smiled once he found a pen. "I have a phone, and you probably do too, so we could talk?" It came out in the form of a question, and Josh tried his best not to cringe at the terrible wording.

"Yeah," was the only word Tyler could choke out before Josh was holding his arm and scrawling on the set of numbers. After he was done he paused, staring at the black band tattoo on Tyler's wrist. Tyler was pretty damn young for a tattoo, but his mom trusted him. Tyler could see Josh's cheeks get slightly redder as he pulled away.

"So I'll see you around?" Josh asked, flashing a small smile.

"Yeah, see you," Tyler gave a small smile back before turning around to head to the tree with an unbreakable grin on his face.

The dreams stopped. They were no longer needed.

**Author's Note:**

> ps tysm for reading this!! if you got this far we're friends/broughs/clique buddies now ok  
> also if anyone needs a beta hmu just throwing that out there


End file.
